Knaresborough Castle to be turned purple to help end polio

Knaresborough Castle is to be floodlit in purple this Saturday (October 24), to mark World Polio Day.

Rotary International, the service organisation behind the initiative, chose the colour purple for its End Polio Now campaign to represent the purple dye used to mark the left little finger, the ‘purple pinkie’, of children given the polio vaccine by immunisation teams.  

In a related initiative, Knaresborough Rotarians will be planting 4,000 purple crocus bulbs around Knaresborough this October. Last year, the organisation planted bulbs at Linden Homes' Castlegate estate on the A59. 

In 1985, Rotary International pledged to rid the world of polio, and spearheaded the campaign at a time when there were over 1,000 polio cases a day in 125 countries.

Today, only two countries have endemic polio: Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Rotary's efforts over the years have seen 2.5 billion children immunised against the virus in 122 countries, and worldwide the organisation has donated £2.1 billion to the project.

Rotary’s aim is to make polio only the second disease eradicated by vaccination and public health measures after smallpox.

Supporters of the initiative can donate via Rotary Club of Knaresborough's JustGiving page.

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